Editing Guidelines
This is to be the guide for the standard format, as well as a discussion of proper editing etiquette. General Keep the number of duplicate links on a page down. Small articles only need one link to any given page, large articles may be better for one link in each major section. This doesn't apply to sections that are lists - everything in a list that can be linked, should be. It also doesn't apply to references. Pages of any size should probably end with a References section. Multiple references to the same story are fine. Story names should be in italics. It's suggested that the first occurrence of the name of the page subject in the text (for instance, the name and/or codename of the character the page is about) be highlighted in bold. For pages about a story, that should be both bold and italic. Make sure to spell check the page. Use preview before saving the page, you'd be amazed how many formatting errors you'll track down that way. If it is a major change, let other people know what you did in the summary section or on the discussion page. Contentious changes should be discussed on the forum before making them. Keep to information that can be verified from published stories, original information seeded into the original wiki from the 2005 version of the Canon Bible, or Word of God on the forums. Articles with seeded information should be identified with the "2005 bible" category tag; WOG should be identified as such, preferably with a pointer to the forum thread or message. A partial backup of the original wiki, as text files, was made; this is all of the old wiki which still exists, and is useful when striving to identify original seed information; This thread tells how to obtain a copy. Reference main articles using the standard Wikipedia code. Story Pages There's a highly personal account of how XaltatunOfAcheron does a story page as part of processing a story for the timeline pages. Your process is likely going to be different, but this should get you started. Character Pages Please avoid tables other than things like the MID, if you can. Most of the information in the tables from the old wiki can easily be folded into the general body of the article, with things like hair, eye color, hight, weight and general build going under appearance, along with costumes and usual clothing choices. Things like general demeanor, likes and dislikes, and sexual preference can go in the General section, and birthdays, alternate names and gender can go in the page header, the section that isn't a section above the table of contents. Many characters only have one appearance. For characters that have multiple appearances, an "Appearances" section may be appropriate. This section lists each appearance with a short description of what happened, and a reference to the story(s) it happened in. When adding MIDs, by preference use the template available on Template:Infobox_MID or one of the more specialized ones linked from that page. If the person appears in a family page, this should probably be noted: e.g. "Miss Daffodil is listed in the 'Perfect family' page. After marriage, she is listed in the 'Perfect-Awful family' page." It's also acceptable to put this in the Associations section. Character Page Names The general priority order is: code name, full name (e.g. Elizabeth Carson) without titles or honorifics, last name with honorific (e.g. Mrs. Shugendo), first name. A major exception to that is school staff; the preference in that case is to not use their codenames as page title. The reason for that is that in the school context, they are rarely referred to by codename; some of those codenames have been inactive for many years. Adding a redirect page under the codename is useful, however. Ambiguities should be handled using the standard Wikipedia disambiguation policy. Whether the definite article should be used in code names (e.g. The Green Witch or just Green Witch) is a point of some contention. Family Pages Quite a few characters come in families. Families can have their own pages, usually titled something like "Wilson family", "Goodkind family" or similar. It's unnecessary to duplicate information from the specific character pages; use the "main article" code instead. By convention, the f in 'family' is not capitalized. Family pages have three or four sections: header, an optional diagram, People and References. Header The header should say a something about the family to orient the reader, for example: "The Family" is a Chicago Organized Crime family; \[\Glyph] is the major character. If everything comes from one story, this should be stated. It's probably a good idea to say which canon author owns the characters in the family. Diagram An optional genealogy diagram goes here. This uses the Familytree template. The best thing about this template is that it exists: don't be afraid to ask for help on the forum if you want to use it! People The people section has one sub-section for each person. Each person in this section should have either a person page or a redirect page. Whether the subsection name should be the person's code name or given name depends on which is more relevant, this is basically a judgement call. Person pages are described above. pages have the following format: #redirect \[\name#section name] (don't use the backslashes!). Redirect pages can always be renamed to become person pages if there's enough new information to warrant it. Power Pages Power pages are to be titled as the power itself, not someone that uses that power. For instance, the page on Warping is Warping instead of Warpers. Telekinesis instead of Telekinetics, etc. This is to avoid confusion and cluttering with the Powers Categories, which detail all the characters that have that particular power. This is also one of the rare instances where a table is encouraged, to give a rough, at-a-glance outline of what each level is capable of. However, don't just leave it at that. Detail each level, what exactly it means to have that level of power, what the varieties are (such as Pyro or Hydrokinesis for the Telekinesis page) and what characters are known to have those levels of power. Buildings Titled what people call the building. This includes things like the Eastman Annex and the Workshops. Start the actual page with the year the building was built (if known) and when it was last renovated, if ever. Detail whether it's a Cottage, Annex, specific room, or Administrative building, classroom or Arena. The pages should also have what classes are in them, a list of characters that live there, House Mothers if applicable, and what general function they serve in the school, like the Workshops being the classroom and work area for the Engineering track students. Clubs, Cliques and Training Teams Title is self explanatory. For the body of the page, have a description of what the club or clique is about, what their position in the school is, perks they have, that sort of thing. Also have a list of the students that are in the club or clique, with a short description of what position they hold, when they joined or left (or were kicked out), etc. Leave the description of the actual character to their own page. Timeline There's a complete page describing the timeline, how to format it and why it works the way it does. Issues Not everyone sees things the same way. If there's a disagreement about something, it should probably be put in a Notes section or similar. That's a parking place for things like "I can't find textev for the EX-3 rating..." Don't be afraid to use the Talk page; actually, it's a good idea to see if there are discussions there. The real thing to avoid is edit wars. Category:Policy